Missing Pieces

Johnny spent the first week of August up at Kevin and Jessica and Ian's, helping with this and that. I just now got his photos out of his camera. The only ones he took up there were of the Blue Angels. Pretty cool!

Shortly after he came home, Kevin and Jessica and Ian left for Hawaii and are just returning today. Jessica posted many photos on facebook of their trip. I'll steal one of the three of them over there since Johnny didn't take any while he was up at their place...

Guess all facebook will give me is a miniature version...

Back home, in the smoke, Johnny took a photo of the smoky sun setting over the west hills.

And then, he took photos of me. First picking pears out of our pear tree... (I gave up on the ladder quickly since it leaned when I did.)

And then picking blackberries. So many pears and blackberries...

Alas, I did not take photos of the several long-time but seldom seen friends who came by this August: first Suzi, whom I had not seen in 25 years, came by while Johnny was up at Traumhof with Kevin and family. Suzi is an artist friend who shares my love of horses and plants. Since I did not think to take her photo, instead I'll share one that she painted years ago of Charlie, our donkey. It hangs over my desk up here in my office.

Suzi had a bad car wreck many years ago and had to quit painting. She is just now recovered enough to at least start to think about painting again. If you search the web for Suzi Mather you will see many of her wonderful works of art.

Julie Gilbert with her son and two grandchildren were our other surprise visitors this month. Alas, I have no photos of Julie past or present. We took jump lessons together some years ago... she on her Morgan mare, me on my Morgan gelding. And once we rode on the beach together but the only photos I have of that trip are of me on Mr. Smith and another friend on her horse. Next time Julie comes, maybe we'll saddle up two of my horses and ride together again.

A phone call told me that another old and seldom seen friend had passed away... my cousin Sharon York. The only photos I have of her were taken years ago at Dad's place. Rhoda is my Dad's youngest sister. Sharon is my Dad's oldest sister Enid's daughter.

Linda, Dad, Aunt Rhoda, Cousin Sharon, Sister-in-law Elladine, Brother Bob

Sharon and Aunt Rhoda sitting below a partly visible painting Suzi Mather did of my dad's Polled Herefords

Well, that's enough nostalgia for now. Time to milk goats and feed horses. Soon it's back to making pickles, canning tomatoes and pears, and trying to keep the garden and greenhouse watered. No rain in sight but at least the smoke has dissipated.

That's life on the Fink Family Farm.

A Smoky Sunday

Fires in the Northwest are causing smoke filled skies almost everywhere. The smoke is not too bad where we are (yet) but we can see it against the hills above us, which periodically disappear behind their veil of smoke. This morning the smoke was thick enough to cause my eyes to tear a little and I could smell it. But it was not enough to stop us from taking a Sunday drive up Agency Creek Road to look for Dippers.

Here Johnny stands above "The Chutes" which is now a trickle. All the baked looking rocks to the right are normally under water. We have never seen Agency Creek this low.

Upstream a ways, I found these interesting shadows formed from leaning trees.

We found two Dippers at different places along the creek. Neither was very cooperative about having its picture taken. I finally got a photo of the rear end of this one.

I stopped for a photo of this mini falls that is usually a mega falls covering about five times this area. In my first attempt, the camera focused on the nearby bushes but I decided I rather liked this impressionistic picture.

Here's the better focused version...

Back home, I went out to check the bananas beginning to form inside the banana flower. So fun to watch it happen! I had no idea this was how bananas were made. I'll take photos periodically and make a blog someday of the process from start to finish... presuming they continue and actually make bananas.

Outside the perennial sweet pea is one of the few plants I manage to keep watered. It is blooming its thanks.

 
Also favored with the hose are the dahlias. Bumblebees love them.

This evening my email received this warning from the Oregon DEQ: "Conditions are expected to worsen this evening and smoke is expected to last through Wednesday."

Glad we took our Dipper drive today. Tomorrow we're off to the coast where the smoke has not yet arrived thanks to that lovely ocean breeze.

Photo Memories

After I wrote this blog, grandson Ian sent a photo he must have taken on August 21, 2017, at our Total Eclipse and 50 1/2 year wedding anniversary party last summer. Thanks, Ian!

I found some really old scans of photos and started to write a blog called Blasts from the Past. Then I found this unpublished blog of family photos I had found earlier in the depths of my computer. So I'm combining them and hopefully will remember to publish it this time. The Blasts from the Past are at the bottom.

Jessica's photo of Ian and Kevin before they go to watch Hamilton 3/4/18

Munazza, Cedrus, Kestrel & Steve after watching The Matrix 2017

Munazza, Firdos, Sidra, Ali, Faiza, Steve, Johnny, Dad, Eric

  July 2000

Monica and JP

Munazza, Steve, Kestrel, Grandma (Linda), Cedrus

Dad's 80th birthday in "Mom's cart" that she bought as a lawn ornament and Dad refurbished for me

Dec. 07 Linda, Dad, Rhoda, Sharon, Elladine, Bob

Nov. 2001, Dad and Ian

Nov. 2001, Jessica and Ian

Oct 2004, Ashland  Rob, J.P., Munazza, David, Faiza, Steve

Kinnera 2003 with Finegan and Hazel

Ian's first goat visit, March 02

Sarah March 02

Kestrel and Grandpa  Christmas 2007

And here are the Blasts from the Past that I found more recently...

 Imp standing in 4 states at once in 1967 on our (Johnny and my) way from Illinois to Wyoming. Imp was the first foal I raised and the love of my teen-aged life. He was out of my first horse, Lady, bred to the Morgan stallion I rode in shows as a teenager for Fred Dzengolewski, back in Illinois. Imp was named after my beloved grandmother Inga Marie Pederson (IMP), who never met Imp and was *not* a horse person, but he was born on her birthday, so...

Imp being a pack horse in Wyoming...

Below is a photo of my late brother, Bob Foley, with his beloved hydroplane, the Full House Mouse. He was always as nuts about boats as I was (am) about horses.

Our dad, Frank Foley, before I knew him. He shared a love of boats with my brother and a love of horses with me.

I wish I had some of Mom. She hated having her picture taken (as do I!) and died before the age of digital photos. I will try to get some old prints scanned in someday by someone... can't get my printer/scanner to work...

Johnny and me at friends' Deni and Bob's 25th wedding anniversary in 1991

Now here's a change of pace... two scanned photos from our early years in goats. GCH Fink Family Farm Deedee was from our Alpine doe Alderwood Deelux and our Nubian buck Bar-Crest Tago. Not only was Deedee a Grand Champion Recorded Grade in the show ring, she produced over ten tons of milk in her lifetime, still milking at age 11, and having produced Grand Champion Fink Family Farm Gigi who went on to win many Grand Championships and Best in Show at the Oregon State Fair over 390 entries in 1988. She was still milking at age 13.

Deedee's twin sister, Fink Family Farm Delilah also produced over ten tons of milk, still milking at age 11, having specialized in multiple births. Here she is as a 3 year old with quintuplets in 1979. The next two freshenings she had quadruplets. She had 26 kids in her lifetime. No wonder we had too many goats!

A First for Our Jungle Room!

This Sunday morning when I opened the door from the house into the greenhouse, aka Jungle Room, so I could water the plants, I knew by the wonderful fragrance that something was blooming. The first thing I saw blooming was not where the sweet smell was coming from though. It was a banana flower! This is the first time any banana tree has bloomed for me. I've had this hardy banana for many years. Alas, hardy bananas don't produce edible fruit. But it's exciting to have it flower at last!

I kept searching for the source of the sweet smell and found it by the south window. One of the ornamental gingers is in bloom. Our greenhouse smells like Hawaii... temporarily.

A few other plants are blooming right now, including this pretty tuberous begonia. It is hard to get a photo of the whole plant as it is draped all over lots of other plants. (This is, after all, a jungle room.)

Tuberous begonias given to me recently by friend Dorothy don't need flowers to be spectacular. I didn't realize there were two different kinds in the same pot. They are easy to start from leaf stems and Dorothy must have stuck two leaf stems from two different plants into this pot. A search on the web told me these are Rex begonias. The one with the snail-shell curved leaves is called, appropriately enough, Escargot. The other one, with the purple edging and highlights, may be Fireworks.

It's nice to have flowers to see without having to go out into the hot sun to water them. And really nice to have a banana flower!

Cooling off at the Coast

This is Black Oystercatcher nesting season and I've been spending two or three days each week out there monitoring nests... or something. Any excuse will do when it's hot at home. Sometimes the heat at home provides stunning beauty, though, like on July 4 when the sky provided it's own fireworks display...

 On July 13, I did my CoastWatch mile walk to Cape Kiwanda from McPhillips Park. It was in the 90s at home, 60s at the coast... perfect weather for a hike.

July 14 I stayed home. It was too hot for me but not for butterflies.

July 17 was my beached bird survey at Bob Straub Park. I photographed a banded Snowy Plover and reported it but have not yet heard where it came from. Snowy Plovers are "near threatened" with declining populations.

July 19, McPhillips Park again. Why not?

July 23, Road's End... Black Oystercatcher chick at last! (Right side of photo... little gray thing on the other side of the rock from adult)

A white-crowned sparrow watched me as I watched the oystercatchers.

...then back to McPhillips Park... did not want to go home to the heat...

July 26 I actually got Johnny to go to the coast... to meet friends in Netarts for lunch. He doesn't mind the heat like I do. After lunch, he napped and read a book in the car while I trekked down to Short Beach to look for Oystercatchers.

I found two right at the start, happily taking baths where the creek flows into the ocean.

I was surprised at the amount of erosion of the cliff since last year.

Not so much erosion at the south end, where houses are on top of the cliff and where we walk down, beside the waterfall.

Then we drove to Cape Meares. I was thrilled with this sign at one of the viewing areas...

And especially this message "to all dogs"...

Looking across to the North Toe, I heard and then saw an Oystercatcher.

I went back up to the top viewing platform, where Johnny was, and we saw an Oystercatcher foraging on the tongue of this big offshore rock, then flying to the Toe again. I suspected it was feeding an unseen chick.

On July 30 I went back to Road's End, fully expecting to see chicks... but no such luck. The pair were on the nest rock at first, but not feeding chicks. They seemed to be having an altercation with a single BLOY that was on a rock to the south. They flew back and forth screaming.

On their nest rock, foraging and preening

On the rock to the south, arguing with a 3rd BLOY and hanging out

The little rock to the right of the pyramid rock has the BLOY that was irritating the pair.

 Johnny, who had been doing lots of repair jobs at home plus helping a neighbor put in a new septic tank, left on July 31st for Seattle to confer on Kevin and Jessica's house roof plus do some other projects. He loves doing projects for the kids.

Occasionally, I stay home and get work done. On August 1st, I watered all the new trees in the arboretum. This butterfly, a Painted Lady, enjoyed the moisture I provided.

It has cooled off somewhat, but the coast and those crazy BLOY called anyway. On August 2nd, I went back to Road's End to try to figure out if the chicks were still somewhere or if the nest has failed. I did not figure it out. The adults were on a tidal rock south of their nest rock and never while I was there went to their nest rock. But it is odd that they are still in the area if their chicks are gone. I'll go back again next week... Nothing like an excuse to keep me trekking to the coast.

No chicks but the view is always wonderful...

And this day, a deer watched me watching her...